The PSNI police believes that the unionist paramilitary UDA was involved
in the murder of Catholic community worker Kevin McDaid in Coleraine
last month, it has been revealed.

Crown prosecutors also disclosed at the High Court this week that ten
people are now under threat as part of a campaign to intimidate
witnesses to the attack.

Mr McDaid, a father-of-four, was beaten to death yards from his front
door after a UDA-organised mob descended on the area and carried out
random attacks on Catholics.

“The only thing absent... was the long white cloaks, the white hoods and
the burning crucifixes,” Sinn Féin’s Deputy First Minister, Martin Mr
McGuinness said.

Another local Catholic man, Damien Fleming, was also attacked and
serious injured as violence flared over the presence of Irish tricolour
flags in the largely nationalist ‘Heights’ district.

However, as part of a decades-old British “normalisation” campaign, the
PSNI had strongly denied the potentially explosive allegation that the
attack was sanctioned by the UDA. Other reports have indicated that the
actual call for UDA action came via a text message from a member of the
PSNI itself.

Despite the recent killing and other non-fatal attacks, the issue of
sectarian assaults on Catholics in the North did not feature
significantly as an issue in the recent European elections. It was not
raised by any party during the elections in the 26 Counties.

The matter only reached a head at a bail hearing for one of those
accused of the murder this week, when Crown counsel pointed to the risk
that witnesses faced UDA intimidation.

The British government has long denied that the UDA continues to carry
out sectarian attacks, while the official position of the devolved
DUP/Sinn Féin administration at Stormont is also that the UDA is
maintaining a “ceasefire” and is engaged in a process of decommissioning
its weapons.

Meanwhile, emboldened loyalists have attempted to erect Union Jack flags
and other loyalist symbols near where Mr McDaid was murdered.

It is understood that loyalists entered the area at around 6pm last
night and began putting up flags and taunting nationalist residents.

Several flags had been put up on a lamp-post beside the murder scene but
were removed in an increasingly tense situation in the coastal town.

“[Catholic] children wearing St Joseph’s College uniforms were told to
f*** off home,” said local nationalist councillor John Dallat.

“It’s appalling that people who claim to be celebrating a holiday can
come into a place where residents are still raw and grieving and behave
like this.”

Meanwhile, the organisers of a march planned by the Protestant Orange
Order through the nationalist area have agreed to re-route it away from
the scene of Mr McDaid’s murder.

The parade had been due to pass the McDaid home but the Coleraine
Orangemen have agreed to revise their route.

Meanwhile, claims by the British government that unionist paramilitary
groups have engaged in “historic” acts of decommissioning have been
exposed as lies.

Despite breathless claims in the mainstream media that large quantities
of arms are in the process of being destroyed by British Army experts
under the eyes of the Canadian General John de Chastelain of the IICD
arms body, it has now emerged that de Chastelain is not even in the
country.

The claims were designed to facilitate the extension of a loyalist
decommissioning “deadline”, now in its tenth year, and further British
grant aid for the loyalist murder gangs.

It is now expected that tegislation will be passed to extend the August
deadline, buying further time for both the unionist paramilitary gangs
and the British government.

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